Holidays are always a downer
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Oklahoma
Posts: 110
Holidays are always a downer
This holiday has been a downer for our family since 2001. My FIL was killed the day after Christmas in a one car accident. His birthday was the 24th of December.
The past few years with him being on this earth was not good for him, so I am thankful that he's out of his miserable life of hurting all the time.
He was an alcoholic of the worst kind. My husband his family thought that this man hung the moon, but with his death, reality has set in that he wasn't the saint that they all thought he was.
We miss him each and everyday. This time of the year my husband tends to make more meetings (which makes me happy). He concentrates on himself and today rather than the past.
I see my husband going down the same road with the pain that his dad did. Although mine has been in recovery for 4 years, I know it's a day by day process.
We have created new traditions to compensate. My husband and his mother hasn't spoken in 3 1/2 years. She was money hungry, we did things the right way (according to the contract he and his dad had) in respect of getting the business. It's just a shame that one of her grandchildren our eldest is a senior this year, accomplishing great success with his music. Her grandaughter (our youngest) is in FFA showing pigs of all things.
It's just a shame!
The past few years with him being on this earth was not good for him, so I am thankful that he's out of his miserable life of hurting all the time.
He was an alcoholic of the worst kind. My husband his family thought that this man hung the moon, but with his death, reality has set in that he wasn't the saint that they all thought he was.
We miss him each and everyday. This time of the year my husband tends to make more meetings (which makes me happy). He concentrates on himself and today rather than the past.
I see my husband going down the same road with the pain that his dad did. Although mine has been in recovery for 4 years, I know it's a day by day process.
We have created new traditions to compensate. My husband and his mother hasn't spoken in 3 1/2 years. She was money hungry, we did things the right way (according to the contract he and his dad had) in respect of getting the business. It's just a shame that one of her grandchildren our eldest is a senior this year, accomplishing great success with his music. Her grandaughter (our youngest) is in FFA showing pigs of all things.
It's just a shame!
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Spreading my wings
Posts: 7,163
Cem blessings to you 
This time of the year can be a struggle yes-it appears that you and your family are trying to make the best of it with new traditions! That is a good thing.
My husband not an A was the love of my life he was in an accident the day before Thanksgiving and died on December 1 st (Ahhh today) although it has been many years
there is not a day that goes by that I do not think of him-and I try to keep his spirit alive without it complicating my life today-
His parents and entire family do not speak to me any longer but, that is their own doing and issues-
Sometimes there is a reason for everything that we may not see but know that there is...Keep the spirit alive and keep those children well!
This time of the year can be a struggle yes-it appears that you and your family are trying to make the best of it with new traditions! That is a good thing. My husband not an A was the love of my life he was in an accident the day before Thanksgiving and died on December 1 st (Ahhh today) although it has been many years
there is not a day that goes by that I do not think of him-and I try to keep his spirit alive without it complicating my life today-
His parents and entire family do not speak to me any longer but, that is their own doing and issues-Sometimes there is a reason for everything that we may not see but know that there is...Keep the spirit alive and keep those children well!
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I know a LOT of people who convince themselves that the holidays are going to be horrible.
And so the holidays are horrible.
But the holidays are going to happen every year whether you plan on having them be horrible or not.
Maybe this year don't make any plans?
And so the holidays are horrible.
But the holidays are going to happen every year whether you plan on having them be horrible or not.
Maybe this year don't make any plans?
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Stumbling toward happiness
Posts: 4,706
cem,
You can change the pattern if you want to. I can give you an example, though I'll have to summon up all my courage to do it.
My older sister was an alcoholic and a heroin addict. During the later years of her addiction, she created a great deal of family havoc (no surprise there) but no one wanted to face it. She committed suicide the day after her daughter's birthday (my niece, now 30). So for many years, this girl has dreaded her birthday like you wouldn't believe - she would go into a depression starting a month before it and it would last for weeks afterward.
The thing that broke the pattern - our "habit" of grief and anger that fell on that day - was to start celebrating my sister on that day. She was an addict. She was an alcoholic. Her addictions led to bad behavior. But she was also loving and kind, brilliant and articulate, and so funny we'd have to beg her to shut up so we could take a breath sometimes.
We tell stories about how good she was at her work (she was in the medical field), the funniest jokes, the strange dogs she had like the one that brought home lingerie, what a good ice skater she was when she was little. It's not rose-colored glasses - we don't deny that things turned out really badly - but we don't trash everything good about her in order to focus on the end anymore.
Remembering the good about her eventually broke the spell of the bad. Sure, it's still a bad choice on her part (when I see her in heaven I will kick her butt big time for that), and we'd love for my niece to not have had to deal with it at all. But there's a certain pride in forcing ourselves to overcome our habit of regret and sadness, and "redeeming" the day, so to speak. And my niece always schedules something nice and healing to coincide with it now.
Progress, not perfection, you know? Dunno if any of that story helps, but I thought I'd toss it out there.
Happy holidays -- try to find the happy even when everything isn't as you'd like it to be.
Love,
GL
You can change the pattern if you want to. I can give you an example, though I'll have to summon up all my courage to do it.
My older sister was an alcoholic and a heroin addict. During the later years of her addiction, she created a great deal of family havoc (no surprise there) but no one wanted to face it. She committed suicide the day after her daughter's birthday (my niece, now 30). So for many years, this girl has dreaded her birthday like you wouldn't believe - she would go into a depression starting a month before it and it would last for weeks afterward.
The thing that broke the pattern - our "habit" of grief and anger that fell on that day - was to start celebrating my sister on that day. She was an addict. She was an alcoholic. Her addictions led to bad behavior. But she was also loving and kind, brilliant and articulate, and so funny we'd have to beg her to shut up so we could take a breath sometimes.
We tell stories about how good she was at her work (she was in the medical field), the funniest jokes, the strange dogs she had like the one that brought home lingerie, what a good ice skater she was when she was little. It's not rose-colored glasses - we don't deny that things turned out really badly - but we don't trash everything good about her in order to focus on the end anymore.
Remembering the good about her eventually broke the spell of the bad. Sure, it's still a bad choice on her part (when I see her in heaven I will kick her butt big time for that), and we'd love for my niece to not have had to deal with it at all. But there's a certain pride in forcing ourselves to overcome our habit of regret and sadness, and "redeeming" the day, so to speak. And my niece always schedules something nice and healing to coincide with it now.
Progress, not perfection, you know? Dunno if any of that story helps, but I thought I'd toss it out there.
Happy holidays -- try to find the happy even when everything isn't as you'd like it to be.
Love,
GL
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